One nice thing you can say about the Duchess of Cambridge's first official portrait, unveiled today at Britain's National Portrait Gallery, is that it certainly does feature a range of different colors arranged onto canvas in the semblance of a human face. You might note that, like the real Duchess of Cambridge, her likeness features two eyes, a nose, and even a mouth. The portrait is also big, very big indeed; much larger than many smaller portraits.

If you're not looking for something nice to say, you might just go with "YEEEESH why did the National Gallery commission a portrait of the oldest woman in the world and then hang it above Kate Middleton's name?"

Advertisement

It's unclear why the artist, Paul Emsley, chose to imagine Kate, not as the vibrant 31-year-old she is today, but as the chilling ghost whose unhappy specter will haunt the apartments of Kensington Palace after her death.

One thing's for certain, though: he's doing his best to make up for it now by talking about how beautiful Kate is in person.

So beautiful.

Incredibly beautiful.

Literally too beautiful to paint, like the smell of a sunrise or the sound of a smile:

"The fact that she is a beautiful woman, for an artist, is difficult.

If a subject has a lot of wrinkle lines or a distinctive chin or nose or something like that it is easier to get a likeness, but when you are working with someone whose face is just a lovely face it is harder."

The Duchess, who studied (though, evidently, not very closely) art history at St. Andrews, helped personally select the artist who would later betray her.

Even the Telegraph, which, God bless, tried SO HARD to be excited about this painting of a gray witch, couldn't help but note that Emsley had included bags too big to be carry-ons under the Kate's eyes:

He refused to comment on whether the Duchess was upset that she has bags under her eyes in the painting.